


Oath

by varooooom



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:56:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur makes a promise he can't keep, and then keeps it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oath

**Author's Note:**

> For my Tossino. ♥

At the end of it all, it should seem only fitting that Merlin's life is lost in battle. It should come as even less of a surprise that it should be lost in Arthur's place, defending him from a foul blow from behind. It should _make sense_ \- but that does not mean that Arthur could have ever seen it coming.

With the heat of battle raging around them, Arthur only has enough time to turn at the precise moment the sword pierces Merlin's side. Time enough to feel the world stop and movements slow until all there is is Merlin, right in front of him but leagues away, too far away, and he can't move fast enough, can't stop this from happening because _it's already done_. The scream tears from him before the blade has found home in his servant, his _friend_ 's body.

"No - _no_!" But he isn't even allowed time to run to him because the war wages on and Arthur has to turn back to oncoming offenders, shouting and cutting them down with a near uncontrollable fury, a rage and devastation borne so deep in his core that all he sees is red: red of the Pendragon flag waving around them, red of the blood spilt across the land, and Merlin, oh _God_ \- " _Merlin_!"

He doesn't care, Arthur doesn't care, _it doesn't matter_ \- the second he's free of the men around him, Excalibur is cast aside and Arthur's knelt in front of Merlin, kicking away the fallen man's body with a reckless disrespect he normally wouldn't afford for but it doesn't. matter. Because Merlin is bleeding and it's all Arthur can see, all he knows, because Merlin is going to _die_ and _he can't stop it_. He puts one hand on his shoulder and tries to ease him down into his lap, to lay him down if only for the sake of seeing the sky when he dies - what a mercy.

"Come here, you idiot, come here," the King says aimlessly, scrabbling at the broken frame of his bloody stupid servant that shouldn't have even been _out_ here. What's done is done, though, and he's left to blind, grief-stricken rambling. " Please, _fuck_ , just - gods, no."

But Merlin, stupid, foolish Merlin, only furrows his brows and tries to shove Arthur away. "N-no, you - Arthur, you have a battle to win, you can't ..."

"I don't _care_ about the stupid _battle_ , Merlin." 

Because he's got knights and men that are actually _trained_ to be on the field, that can fight back whatever remaining forces there may be because Arthur doesn't give two shits in a royal chamberpot anymore. He doesn't know and he doesn't care, because the moment Merlin's blood touches Arthur's hands, nothing in all the world matters anymore. Merlin is so light in his lap. Bodies are usually so heavy when you've to carry them and Merlin's is so _light_ , so much more fragile than anyone else's because it's so much more precious than anyone else's and Arthur let him break. He let him die, right in front of him, because he lets everyone die, lets everyone down and can't even save the one person that always saved him.

There is no stopping the tears from coming because there is no stopping the blood from flowing, the Sun from burning, the earth from moving, and there's no stopping it because Arthur cannot stop anything.

"Who gave you permission to do this, you insolent toad? Who the _Hell_ said you could throw your life away like this? _Fuck_ , Merlin, _why_ \- ?"

But no, there's no reason to ask why. He knows full well - he just doesn't want to accept it. He doesn't want to lose another for his sake, for his _future_ because what the fuck is the point of his future if Merlin isn't pushing him through it? What kind of future is it if he's not there?

Merlin ceases his shoving (likely for lack of strength, the bastard, expending energy he doesn't have on fruitless tasks) and smiles instead, something broken and laced with pain. It's a ghost of his usual sort, that unabashed grin that is - _was_ \- always entirely inappropriate, and it hits Arthur like a mace to the chest. "I'm not throwing it away. Not for you." Arthur sucks his teeth in derision and Merlin exhales slowly, carefully, his hand grappling for purchase in Arthur's mail and ending up curled around his belt. "Hey. I thought you said no man is worth your tears?"

Arthur laughs with a sob, wretched and horrid sounding, and his voice comes far too weak to be his own, and maybe it's not. Maybe it's no longer his voice, because maybe he's no longer Arthur. Maybe he stopped being Arthur the moment Merlin started dying.

Maybe he's dying with him.

"S'a good thing you're not a man, then, isn't it?" Merlin smiles, laughs too with a slight shrug and a nod of his head, and Arthur _tries_ to smile, to make light of this situation but it's too dark, it's far too dark because Merlin was his light for far longer than he'd realised and it's too hard to hold on when everything is slipping away. Arthur shakes his head, eyes pressed shut. He can't bear to see Merlin like this, crippled and broken and falling to pieces - in his damn arms and he still can't put him back together.

Each sharp inhale released as a shaky breath leaves Arthur more and more lost as to what to do. Somewhere, he's vaguely aware that the battle is still going, waning for all they've struck down the better part of the opposing forces, but it feels disconnected like a dream he can't remember but that he's trapped in before waking. A nightmare filled with blood and screaming, Merlin's eyes losing their light and suddenly he has to see them.

He looks down at his fallen friend, another in the long line of losses he can no longer keep track of, and Arthur wonders what he's done to deserve this. What sin did he commit so heinous to take from him everyone he has ever cared for? What god decided it just that he should outlive them all when surely they are the more worthy? What did Merlin do to deserve this, when he has been nothing but loyal and brave and strong and everything Arthur tries to be, has fought so hard to be, naturally and unwavering - solid and sure at all the times Arthur wasn't - and Arthur just doesn't understand why.

"You can't d-" He chokes on the word, as though he cannot bear to say it, "You cannot do this, Merlin. I forbid it. I won't - I _can't_ -"

His hand moves again, from Arthur's belt to the crook of his elbow, trying and failing to grip onto the mail there. "You can," Merlin rasps, giving Arthur's arm a squeeze that the King can scarcely feel for the strength leaving his body. "It wasn't supposed to end with me, Arthur. It was supposed to start."

Arthur purses his lips and shakes his head, brows furrowed. "That's shit, Merlin, and you know it." Because it didn't start with him. It didn't start with either of them, but rather Uther and Ygraine, with Nimueh and her Religion, with the Earth cooling and the Sun forming. It started millennia before either of them were even a concept in time, and Arthur knew this from the very first moment Merlin intruded upon his life.

' _There's something about you, Merlin_ ,' and it started ages before they first set eyes upon each other.

Merlin falls silent and sinks lower into Arthur's lap, letting the thought wash over him. They'd grown so reliant on each other over the years, leant on each other at every turn, to the point that it's difficult to remember what life was like before they met; to the point that it's unthinkable to imagine what life would be like without each other. 

Destiny, Arthur decides, is a load of rubbish. Fuck what he is or isn't meant to be, what things he's meant to accomplish or whatever the Fates decided upon for him. It means _nothing_ \- not when he has Merlin dying right in front of him. If they are two sides of the same coin, these two inexplicably interconnected pieces of one grand puzzle, how then is it just to claim one before the other? How is it possible for one's time to run up without the other falling with him? How is Arthur supposed to accept that?

He is King, and men have fallen for him countless times. They will continue to do so, because the war doesn't stop for just one man. Arthur is meant to keep moving, Camelot is meant to move on. Albion is meant to continue growing, bigger and brighter than ever - but Merlin is not just _one man_. Those words unspoken, ' _two sides of the same coin,_ ' hold true even without Arthur's knowing of them, and they can both feel it. Something is breaking here, something falling out of place.

"Yeah," Merlin swallows, "Yeah. I know." He eases his grip on Arthur's arm, reaching up slowly to instead place his hands on the back of Arthur's neck, tries to gently tug him down. The touch sends a chill down Arthur's spine, a cold and cruel thing as Merlin has hardly the strength to move him, and Arthur closes his eyes. 

Albion _will_ move on; the kingdom will grow and prosper, the people will live comfortably, and the Once and Future King will herald in a new era, one that favours all and dawns a new light of hope.

But Arthur - Arthur will forever remain on this battlefield, in this moment, as it is his last and final. King he may yet be, but Arthur Pendragon will die with Merlin's blood on his hands.

He obliges Merlin's tugging by bowing over him, pressing their foreheads together and keeping his eyes shut. His entire body shakes with the effort, not for the awkward position but for the finality of it, the tender closeness of being together with all that Is and all that Will Be. He speaks in hardly a whisper, a harsh and ragged tone meant not only for Merlin, but for the earth and her spirit, for the gods above and all that would bear witness to his vow.

"I will never forgive you for this, Merlin. I will not allow for this to pass. One day," his breath catches, and he inwardly commands himself not to cry _on_ Merlin, "one day, I will leave this world for the next, and I will seek you out to make you pay your recompense. I swear this to you, Merlin. I will find you again."

For a moment, Merlin watches Arthur, just looks at him from the shape of his eyebrows and the line of his nose and curve of his lips, knowing he won't ever see it again. And then he closes his own eyes with a quiet shudder, as if he feels Arthur's voice ringing through everything. His magic pulses with it, seeping out of his veins and his soul and melting together with the very breath around them and it's a promise that gets rooted into the rules of time, life and death, the rules of the world, of the Old Religion where they both come from one way or another. Merlin can feel it, and Arthur can feel _him_.

"I guess that means I should be afraid." His voice comes quiet, so softly that Arthur might not have heard it had he not been pressed against him, and his grip tightens only slightly, as much as he has energy for, around Arthur's neck. "I'll wait for you."

And there is no rush of power on the King's behalf. He does not feel the strength of his words down to his core, and neither does he know of their bond with the sands of time and threads that tie existence together. Arthur can see only that which is in front of him, and all he can see is Merlin. The sharp cut of his cheekbones, the brilliant blue of his eyes, the dark matting of his unruly hair, those ri _dic_ ulous ears. He sees his servant and his best friend and his Sun and his stars. He sees the honour and justice that he fights for, the love of his people and the love of his home, because Merlin _is_ his home, has stood beside him and for him in everything, _everything._

He sees everything in those beautiful, blue eyes. And that's how Arthur knows his words as Truth, because Merlin is everything, and the universe will shape itself around the light in his eyes.

A light that's fading. A light that's leaving, and Arthur laughs while he cries.

"You'd better."

He lowers his lips to Merlin's, pressing them together in a shaky, desperate, final kiss.

* * *

If there is anything Arthur Pendragon really cannot stand in this world, it's Intern Season at the office. His father insists in the appearance of fairness when hiring on new blood, but Arthur knows that's total shit because the company's nepotism is known even to children in primary school on the other side of the pond. (For everyone save him, of course, because God forbid the CEO's son is shown even the slightest leeway given the custodian that likes to light up in the downstairs cupboard but has yet to be fired because some investor's son's best friend's cousin needed work.) All it _really_ is is an excuse to lug over some postgrads from Edinburgh, stick them on a leash and hand them to one of the associates for three months so people will think they stand a snowball's chance in Hell of being hired at Pendragon Corp. It's despicable and gross, not to mention horribly _tedious_ as babysitting is definitely not written in on any of the clauses of his contract. He knows. He wrote most of it.

Arthur _hates_ it, and he is always inevitably roped with the most awkward, timid, eager-to-make-an-impression-that-doesn't-really-matter-one-way-or-the-other intern that will spend most of their time either stumbling over their own feet out of fear or trying to woo him and take over the company. (That only happened once, actually, but Morgana likes to bring up Sophia every time Arthur complains about his new one, the harpy.) Every year, it's the same charade, and Arthur has been praying for the Season he gets someone even halfway decent at their job, or at least vaguely interesting to keep him entertained for the duration of their indentured servitude. 

All hope of any such luck is lost the moment he walks into the lobby though, because he is already running late, trying to drink coffee in one hand while answering emails on his phone in the other, and some lanky idiot with a poorly fitted suit, dark black hair that looks vaguely sex-ruffled, and ab _surd_ ly large ears decides it's a good idea to stop right in the middle of the damn entrance. Naturally, Arthur doesn't notice until it's far too late and smacks right into the man, spilling coffee all over the ground and his shoes that likely cost more than the bastard's entire outfit.

"Oi!" he shouts, hands held up to prevent any further spilling or damage to his phone, and Sex Hair turns around with a vaguely bored expression framed by sharp cheekbones and startlingly blue eyes. Arthur might think him a bit gorgeous if he didn't immediately smirk at the sight of him.

Did he mention that he really _hates_ Intern Season?

"Ooh, rough luck there, mate. Perhaps you ought to watch where you're going next time?"

Really. _Really_ hates it.

"I _beg_ your pardon?"

Blue Eyes, Sex Hair smiles pleasantly and shoves his hands in his pockets, "You haven't got to beg, really. It's all right, that'll clean right up."

"Have you any idea who you're speaking to?"

"Hmm, nope, sorry. Can't say that I do. Lost my subscription to Prats in Suits Weekly, see."

Arthur just about gapes at his brazen attitude, a mixture of offense and pure amusement pulling his lips into a not-at-all innocent smirk when one of the nearby secretaries comes over to take his cup and call for a custodian. People start buzzing about him to make sure that he's okay, and the hapless intern slowly starts to cotton on. "Well, see that you find it, because I am not your _mate_. I'm your _boss_."

He flushes to the tips of his ears, a look of absolute horror in his eyes when someone calls him by 'Mr. Pendragon', and Arthur tries his hardest not to find it all horrendously endearing. "... Shite."

"Yes, I should think so."

"Any chance we can just ... forget about all that? Fresh start?"

"Oh, no. Not a chance," he says cheerily, reaching forward to grab the guest badge clipped to his jacket and read his name, " _Mer_ lin. I've been waiting for this for a long, _long_ time."


End file.
